Reading the Play

Reflecting on the Political play:

I found through reading of the play that for me it gave me an idea of paparazzi and the filtering of what is allowed to seep through into the public's eyes. It reverberated a sense of what's worthy enough to be exposed in the news and what the reporters and editors consider will sell, highlighting an important political stance in the idea that a famous persons excursions take place over the impoverished sufferings of others and the awareness of the hardships that brings them.

The use of no names in the play and just the use of the labellings "A, B, C and D" is another way to lead towards a Brechtian performance, as the V effect is increased in a sense that you have no association with the names on a personal level, they can be played by anyone, it can represent whomever you want so that you can as an actor question the "Why's" instead of what, because this play isn't clouded with narrative, more like snapshots of several conversations that as modern day people we are all familiar with.

There is also an underlying sense of tension ricocheting throughout the play and it's scenes as i develops into something that slowly becomes clear, causing a grating anticipation when we read the play, you are able to familiarize and identify the different personalities that come across and that undeniably brings a climax.The characters are able to become more apparent as time goes on and develops through the play.

I enjoyed reading it as I found that it was an extremely relevant to right now, the stories that have been laced into this play are very fresh and controversial, it is culturally relevant and so the audience already have an understanding, therefore the audience wonder less about the narrative of these stories and can distance themselves from what happened and again ask more of a "Why" as they wonder how hey can reach this state of discord in what we believe is a modern society. 

You are able to see the parallels between conversations that we have nowadays and the conversations that are touched on in the play and the possible unfamiliarity between some characters and the shock of news stories and how we aren't almost able to fathom how or why or even how to communicate to another person about your feelings towards such things.

In class I was struck by the amount of things we felt were political problems or things we would like to discuss and change, I felt that political issues are so widespread that we definitely could've gone on and that the relevance of this term is something that can be expressed in several ways and several art forms.

Research based on news stories in the play: 

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/may/23/ugandan-lesbian-deported-uk-aidah-asaba

 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20026910